


In Deep

by ruff_ethereal



Category: Descendants (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Explicit Language, F/F, Jealousy, Mild Language, Scientist!Evie, Scientist!Mal, Supervillain!Carlos, Supervillain!Evie, Supervillain!Jay, Supervillain!Mal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 16:59:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4884613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruff_ethereal/pseuds/ruff_ethereal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mal finds her night ruined when she falls into an industrial scale compost pit. That she has to go to school the next day doesn't help her mood.</p><p>Evie makes her feel better--among other emotions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Deep

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [i bet we both taste like glitter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4670642) by [arbitrage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arbitrage/pseuds/arbitrage). 



It was the lowest point Mal had ever reached in her entire life, and it wasn't just because she was stuck in the bottom of an industrial scale compost pit, almost literally in deep shit. If there was any benefit to this, the aromatherapy sprayers Evie had been so insistent to install inside her helmet didn't seem quite so much as a waste of time and resources anymore.

She clawed her way up, going through who-knows-how-much organic mush, actual crap, and bacteria. Most of it clung or smeared all over her armour—which, if the rest of this night was anything to go by, she'd have to replace if only because it would be impossible to go out on the streets for the smell. Almost to the top, she managed to get a hand out of the surface. She flailed it around, looking for any hard surface to grab onto and pull herself out of this mess, before she felt a gloved hand wrap around it.

Up and out she went, over the safety railing, onto the catwalks, and on top of a body clad in carbon-fiber armour, much like hers. Mal pushed herself up enough to wipe the muck off her visor, leaving a giant, ugly green-brown smear over her vision and letting her see again.

She was about to thank Jay for pulling her out, when she noticed the distorted colours in front of her weren't muddy browns or subdued oranges: it was a mucky, ugly blue.

Evie's colours.

She felt a different pair of hands grab her chest and help her back up. Mal turned her head and saw dirty white and grimy blacks—Carlos. He and his robotic minions helped her get back onto her own two feet, before he quickly started wiping off his gloves on his armour—never mind that it was already stained with chemical payloads, burns from plasma blades, and the varied filth of the streets of San Fransokyo, at least they weren't unmistakably shit, among other organic waste.

Jay pulled Evie her back up by her armpits. Mal could see the entire front of her armour was stained in the same compost that covered her head to toe—from when she'd dove into the pit to pull her out, she thought.

Had the mood been lighter or the operation gone better, they would have probably made a few jokes about what just happened. Instead, Mal raised her arms, started slowly turning around as Evie aimed her sprayers and showered the both of them in 100% natural, environmentally-safe disinfectant she kept in her tanks “just in case!”

Mal was still covered in crap and plant matter, but she was, for all intents and purposes, “sterile as a toilet bowl on fire!” as Evie would put it. _'It'll have to do,'_ she thought to herself as she trudged down the catwalks and out of the warehouse, the others following some distance back.

The police were still making their way to the plant, and she wasn't about to waste an opportunity for an easy getaway.

* * *

Mal's mood the next day was understandably rotten and even saltier than usual, because even if Evie—bless her chemical genius, and penchant for cosmetics and hygiene—had successfully scrubbed every single inch of her down and got the smell off her armour and Mal herself, along with a faint scent of apples and cinnamon just to be sure, she still had to go class today.

She had only three. They were not very important classes—just electives and the lower tier GE's she still hadn't checked off the list—nor were they very hard subjects, nor were they very long. She could have slept through all of them, and her grade wouldn't have suffered in the slightest. She probably would have, too, if it weren't for the fact that she somehow shared every single one of them with two of her archnemeses:

Honey Lemon and GoGo.

She scowled at them, sitting with her in the row at the very back, with almost the entire length of the half-circle lecture hall between them. And no matter how many daggers she threw and no matter how deep she turned down her lips, they didn't notice her, too busy being in love and idly screwing around with the other to even be somewhat aware of anyone else.

She hated them.

She hated how they could _also_ go out almost every night dressed up in costumes and power armour, yet still keep their grades up, have a sane sleep schedule, and a decent social life, if her stalking Honey Lemon's expansive, mostly inane Instagram page was anything to go by.

She hated how they cared so little about her outside of the field, just treating her like a friendly acquaintance during classes and fellow scientists in the Nerd Lab if they weren't outright ignoring her, even if they were all aware of who was under each of their masks. (Who else could make the connection between their equipment, their alibis, and their projects than fellow SFIT students?)

She hated how they could be so happy, a sickeningly lovey-dovey and perfect couple, spending almost every moment in public acting like something straight out of a cheesy romcom movie only even more bile-raising; spending almost every private moment doing all the things they couldn't in public (Mal had to _assume,_ to be clear, she was above spying and planting bugs—besides, she herself wouldn't want to watch what most of _that_ footage would be); and spending almost every moment in the field in perfect sync, effortlessly coordinating with their team and pulling off maneuvers with anyone on the fly, or combining their respective skills and equipment to devastating effect.

But most of all, Mal hated that they, the heroes, had someone to love, someone to be there for them whatever happened, someone to enjoy their lives with, while she, a villain, had--

“Mal.”

… Evie, who was taking this elective even if she could ace it in her sleep, and could have spent it in a subject that would actually challenge her impressive IQ, but didn't, just so Mal could pass this subject no problem and have someone suffer through the boredom with her.

Evie putt her hand on Mal's shoulder, soothingly rubbing it in the way only she could.

Mal dropped her shoulders, and sighed. She turned to Evie and smiled. “Thanks.”

Evie just smiled back.

The class ended some time later, and students eagerly shuffled out, if they weren't busy snapping out of their bored or unconscious stupors first. Mal slung her backpack back over her shoulder and prepared to make the trudge to her next class before she was late—about the last thing she needed was more reason for the Student Discipline office to be on her case, and without an operation or emergency to make it worth the black mark, too.

Evie, however, had other ideas. She grabbed Mal's arm, stopping her from joining the slog of bodies streaming out either of the two exits. “Come with me to the Nerd Lab!” She said. “I've got a surprise for you!”

Had she been in a better mood, Mal would have asked Evie to spoil the surprise so she could calculate its worth against another late or absent mark from her next class. As she'd barely had any sleep last night, went swimming in a silo full of compost some time before that, and trusted that since it was from Evie it could only be something good, she shrugged and said, “Lead the way.”

Evie beamed even brighter than usual, and Mal found herself feeling quite a bit happier herself—that girl could be so infectious, and that wasn't even getting into the nastier contents of her sprayers. She put her shoulder bag on with more care than usual, took Mal's hand, and off the two of them went in the direction of the Nerd Lab.

They passed through the few people inside at that morning, walking by all manner of fellow scientists at work, researching, or hanging out at their workstations; projects in construction; and finished prototypes awaiting testing, analysis, or improvement; before they finally made it to Evie's station.

Like Honey Lemon's, it was built primarily for large-scale experimental chemistry, and just as if not more colourful and sparkly in design, but as Evie's specialty was more cosmetic, culinary, and pharmaceutical than industrial, little less that half of it was a miniature kitchen/bar that she used to cook up treats, whip up drinks, and try to produce 100% vegan alternatives to products like mayonnaise.

Laboratory safety rules and common sense said it was a bad idea to perform experiments with 100% safe, all-natural ingredients and experiments with not-quite-100% safe, potentially toxic, but still all-natural ingredients in such close proximity to each other, but Evie was keen on taking every precaution she could to keep contamination and accidental spillage at zero—if there was anyone that didn't want her apple-cinnamon strudels to get contaminated with germicide, it was her, especially because it'd “totally ruin the taste!”

Evie headed straight to the kitchen/bar section, set her bag down on the counter, and started pulling out equipment from her cabinets and shelves: her blender, a Blendtec that was souped up to be even more terrifying and ridiculously powerful than it already was; two tall shake glasses; and her jar of full of straws—bendy, curly, straight, or a component of some greater straw-shaped apparatus, all in a rainbow of colours.

Mal perched herself on a free space nearby, watching with mild interest until Evie pulled out the ingredients from her bag: chocolate—real, 100% authentic cacao straight from wherever it grew amazing, the exact opposite of the synthesized joke companies were using to make everything “chocolatier” (Mal shuddered internally); a bottle of milk from Evie's favourite dairy farm, where the cows were treated like goddesses and whose milk was just as divine; and jar of powdered hazelnut—probably freshly ground that morning, too.

“Oh my god...” Mal mumbled, her lips tugging up into a huge smile.

Evie  grinned , and proceeded to whip up a scientifically- improved  milkshake, every part of the process calculated  extensively  and  all the equipment  painstakingly tinkered and adjusted  with  so the end product would be creamy, thick, and smooth in all the right proportions.

Mal drooled as Evie poured it into two tall glasses—it smelled _so_ good, and just _look_ at it flow out of the jar like that—and grabbed the first one as soon as she could, put the rim to her lips, and started chugging.

Gourmands would have tutted and shook their heads, saying that one shouldn't just make like you were dying of thirst with such a luxurious, delectable creation, but frankly, Mal thought they could all go fuck themselves, she _needed_ this.

She didn't stop till she had drained the entire glass of its contents. Mal gasped for air, then sighed happily as she felt the milkshake pooling in her stomach, rich chocolate, creamy milk, and just the right hint of hazelnut dancing on her tastebuds all her while.

Mal looked up at Evie beaming in pride and delight. “Thanks.” She said.

“No problem, Mal~!” Evie sang. “Oh, you got some on your face...”

Mal made to lick it off, before Evie reached over and swiped it off with a finger. Her tongue stayed in her mouth, though it was suddenly, mysteriously tempting to let it dart out as Evie ran her finger over it.

Evie took her now-chocolate coated digit back, and eagerly stuck in it her mouth. Mal watched, her own mouth falling open slightly as Evie licked her finger clean, popping it back out without a single trace of chocolate left and a shiny coating of spit instead.

“Delicious...~” Evie purred.

Mal blinked, now feeling a very different kind of pleasant sensation near and alongside the milkshake in her stomach. “Uh… thanks again for the chocolate, Evie… I really needed that.” She mumbled.

Evie smiled and put a curly straw into her own glass. “Hey, what are friends for, right?” She said, before she put the tip to her lips—with the hand she'd licked clean earlier, Mal noticed.

She spun around quickly walked away— she was suddenly overcome with a powerful need  to get to class and get her absent mark turned to a late  mark .

**Author's Note:**

> Mal - Physicist. Photons, light effects, and lasers. Her equipment can focus stored thermal and solar energy to become devastating blasts of power, blinding flashbangs, or occasionally, some holograms and images to fool people.
> 
> Evie - Chemist, specializing in Pharmaceuticals, Cosmetics, and some Molecular Gastronomy. Chemical sprayers, varied contents. 100% natural, definitely not 100% safe.
> 
> Jay - Biomedical Engineer. Bionic suit, enhancing his natural athleticism to superhuman levels. He has two kinetic strike modules, which are two hydraulically operated "power fists" because why not.
> 
> Carlos - Roboticist and Hacker. Relies mostly on his bots and machines, loyal and useful like dogs, without actually being dogs. Has three: Choco, Latte, and Mocha, whose equipment are modular and can be replaced on the fly.


End file.
